welcome home

It's been just over a week since Rob and I moved into our new house!! Except I was away camping for most of last week so we've actually only lived together for like five days! But so far so good. The house has been coming along nicely and being semi-unemployed has given me more time to get everything in order!

In the midst of moving both of our MacBook chargers called it quits hence my lack of posting. So we have ordered a new one but in the mean time I'm on my ipad and thought I would share some iPhone pictures!

moving day

As the title may suggest, it's moving day tomorrow! What!? That happened so fast! I feel like I just got home from Barbados last week, but that was almost four weeks ago! Since then I've literally been up to my eyeballs in diy projects! They are coming along nicely (not without a few hiccups, but I'll talk about that another time), but I honestly don't think a lot of our furniture will be ready. I haven't put the first coat of varnish on our kitchen table, chairs, or TV stand ... I guess we will be having picnic dinners the first few nights.

Tonight we are loading up the moving truck so we are ready to move tomorrow. I have insisted on painting the living room and bedroom before we move in, so if all goes to plan I will be painting at 8:00 am and moving stuff in, in the afternoon. Wish us luck!

Since I don't have any pretty pictures to share from my projects yet, I thought I would share a few of my pinterest inspirations!

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I'm literally obsessed with bar carts right now. I need one, I want one, I must have one. And I found that exact one with the sort of star burst brass design and teak legs on craigslist in Michigan. I'm going to try and negotiate the price but I think it's fate!

As you can probably tell I'm going for a lot of deep navy blues, blacks, greys and creams. I'm painting the walls a light grey and hoping that our green/grey couches will look good with it!

Now back to packing up my life! See you on the flip side, Cherry Avenue here we come!

this is some grown up shit

After living on my own (well excluding roommates of course) for the last five years, I knew it would be strange to move back in with my parents. So when the opportunity arose to move into a decently priced but super cute rental (my dad just happens to be the landlord), I jumped at the chance. I mentioned it to my boyfriend, also tired of living at home (for all of his 25 years), and he was on board right away!

YOU GUYS, this is some real grown up shit. I have to live with a boy!!! Okay so I've lived with two boys before (it didn't go well, sorry Dylan and Henry) but this is so different. It's scary and exciting and overwhelming and exhilerating. Who knew you could have so many emotions over living with a person. I think the biggest emotion is excitement though! We've been talking about this for a while and after living long-distance for five years, it will be so nice not having to say goodbye.

But now the real scary stuff starts. Figuring out what we each have, deciding what we need, and what can wait until after we move in. Rob is actually being much better than expected when it comes to the furniture and decorations. Usually he is very opinionated and hates most of what I love, so he's been surprising me a lot lately. For example, I sent him a picture of some couches I loved and asked him what he thought (expecting a "those are ugly as f***" reply). Instead the text in return was "I like them, let's pick them up tonight." Amazing!

Since I'm still looking for a job, we are trying to keep the spending to a minimum. I've spent countless hours scouring kijiji and refinishing hand-me-down furniture, but moving into a new place is always expensive. I thought I would share some of my progress via my iphone before some bigger reveals!

**Note: This are not pretty blog pictures, these are "real life, no time for staging" pictures!

I love the shape of this couch and chair. We got them for an awesome price and the upholstery is in great shape. While I'm not in love with the colour or style of the upholstery we will probably live with them like this for a while, but I can definitely see myself re-upholestering them one day!

I've been playing around with colour schemes and I'm thinking blues and greys and maybe even some black. But pops of colour like that citron patterned pillow keep catching my eye (and Rob's too surprisingly!). I'm also loving the way my grandma's 1950's chairs are turning out! Above is a picture of them after being sanded and with one and two coats of dark walnut stain.

I'm totally in love with these velvet blue curtains from West elm but since I'm trying not to break the bank, I'll likely go with these ikea ones.

Still on my to-do list: Find fabric for the dining room chairs, re-finish the dining room table, re-finish the buffet (to be used as a TV stand), re-upholester two (free and awesome) chairs, paint bed-side tables, build a sofa table, find curtains, buy a rug, buy table lamps for living room and bedroom .... I might be forgetting somethings. As you can see, the list is endless. I'm going to be a busy girl for the next two weeks!!

baby shower

Last night was my cousin Carolyn's baby shower. Since her and her husband, Shawn, decided not to find out what they were having, the colour theme was yellow and gray. I love that colour combo! Receiving blankets were used as table cloths and yellow and white daisies were placed in mason jars, it was so cute. They also placed diapers on each table for guests to write messages in for those first few late night diaper changes, a great idea from Pinterest!

I thought I would share a few pictures from the night, mostly of how her sisters and mom decorated.

put-in-bay

When I was younger I used to go sailing with my parents at least three weekends every summer. But as I got older I loved the weekends my parents would sail away because it meant I had the house to myself. I swear, I never had parties mom, just small "get togethers."

So when my parents invited Rob and I to go sailing with them this weekend I was pretty excited. I have loved Put-In-Bay (party island in the middle of Lake Erie) since they first brought me there at the age of fourteen (bad parents!) Rob has been once with myself and my dad when we did Shakedown in 2012 (race to the island, then race to the bar). On Friday night we loaded up the boat and set sail with fingers crossed that the rain would hold off. Unfortunately we did get a little wet, but nothing to cry about. We docked at Pelee Island (known for their wine) for the night and enjoyed a dinner of shrimp and scallops, washed down with Pelee Island Lighthouse Chardonnay.

We were up bright and early to have breakfast. The day before I made peanut butter and banana sandwiches with chocolate chips and wrapped them in tin foil. We popped them onto the hot grill in their foil wrappers and toasted them up. I can't tell you how delicious these are! You could also throw the foiled sandwiches into the coals of a campfire for the same toasty, goo-ey, wonderfulness!

The sail to Put-In-Bay was just beautiful and we enjoyed a quick lunch before heading onto the island. The boat was on a mooring ball in the harbour so we took the water taxi onto the island.

The island was hectic. It was Christmas in July and everyone and their brother was at the Bay. Drunk Santas, elves, and Mrs Clauses were stumbling all over the street and it was only 2:00pm. We decided to avoid the maddness and rented a golf cart to cruise around the island. We then ducked into Frosty's (my favourite bar) and headed to the new patio for some frozen mojitos and beer. After getting smoked out (I forgot how many people smoke in the States), we headed to Tippers for all you can eat prime rib, another PIB favourite. The liquor was flowing and we witnessed an almost bar restaurant fight. No shortage of action on this trip. 

It had started cooling down a bit so we headed back to the boat to get some warmer clothes. And then back to the island to do some people watching and get ice cream cones.

A guy was walking around with a big sign that said "Love Doctor" on one side and "Wanted: One Night Stand - Females Only" on the other. He saw us taking a picture and thought we needed his prop.

One last trip on the water taxi. We spent the rest of the night playing Monopoly (one of Friday's yard sale finds). Dad won, as per usual. 

We had a great sail (well we motored because there was no wind, but the weather was beautiful) back to Kingsville on Sunday. It was nice to get away with my parents. But next time, we will make sure we go to Put-In-Bay when it's a little less wild.

friday on the farm

I've been home for about a week now and have yet to unpack. My life is still in suitcases and boxes and I've been spending as much time as possible away from home to avoid it all. On Friday, I met up with my cousins Steph and Jenn, and Jenn's three daughters, Annie, Ally and Evee to go yard sale-ing and antiquing! We spent most of the morning hopping from yard sale to yard sale but we made a quick stop at my aunt's farm to visit the horses. Evee, only five months old, wasn't too interested but the older girls loved seeing the horses (even if they were a bit afraid of them). I'm glad I brought my camera because I got some cute snaps of the girls and their momma!

We scored some great finds at the sales, but it was just nice to spend the day with my cousins and my favourite little girls. I definitely missed days like these when I was away. It's good to be home!

surfs up

As my last weekend in Barbados loomed before me, I knew I needed to make the most of it. So I called up Boosy for a last minute surf lesson. I had a great time! Christian is an amazing instructor and such an easy guy to hang out with. He mounted his go-pro on my board and sent me some of the footage. I mess around with it in iMovie and created my first video!! I am also in love with this song (and Coldplay's whole album actually)

That's all for now. I'm leaving tomorrow which means copious amounts of packing, attempting to finish half a bottle of rum and all the food in my fridge, and soaking up as many rays as I can.

See you soon Canada!